The Last to Die
by ultimate question
Summary: "Her name was Riley and she was the first to die. And then it was Tess. And then Sam. And Nathan. Nathan was the last to die..." Follows the Canon story unless specified. OC.


Disclaimer: The universe of the Last of Us is own by Sony.

...

Nathan was always a quiet one. Born three years after the incident, he was still able to live a relatively normal life, or at least temporarily. With his father was Ranger and his mother a nurse, they were prepared for the outbreak. On year 0, the day of the chaos, the couple safely holed up in their house, and since his father was still fresh from his tour in the Middle East, they hid in the armory, funneled any infected that went after them into the basement and made quick work of them. Back then, humanity was still trustworthy, despite the chaos of war, and the couple was able to find a couple of survivors and move to the Quarantine Zone in New York. Three years, later, they had Nathan.

He was born tall like his father and skinny as his mother. Despite the meager rations that diminished everyday he was still able to sprout at a speedy rate. With a spec ops father, and a caring mother, one would think that Nathan would grow to be like one of those kids, a loudmouth and a brash, but as I said earlier: He was always a quiet one. From a young age he would hit the library almost daily, entranced by the past, and wished he could relive those years. But all he had was the Zone school and basic training that his father forced him to go through. While in the early years, things did not look so bad, as it did in year 20, but it was evident that humanity was on the decline. Word echoed through that those stuck outside the zone formed their own packs and ravaged the zones for food and shelter. It was also passed along that the infection would further mutate its victims, creating things that we now call bloaters and stalkers. With such imminent threats that the zone faced, it was only time that one's luck would run out. Even battle hardened veterans would fall to a mere scratch to these infected, and with supplies of body armor running out, once laughable shots if small arms fire would become deadly.

On year 10, Nathan's father led a preemptive strike team against a hunter faction and never returned. No one knew what happened, but the within a couple of days, swarms of clickers ad runners threw themselves on the electric fences of the Zone and died. Some had breached the fence, but they only were shot down by the guard. No one was hurt that day, but seeing some clickers running around in body armor, one would only hazard a guess where the strike team went. No one would ever explicitly say anything about the event. And no one wanted to be reminded of the pain and the dangers that lay outside. Little Nathan was shooting bottles with his father's old handgun at the time, and due to the prepared defense, he only heard a few clicks, a few shots, and the slight buzz of the electric fence. And he smelt the smell too. Who could forget the smell burnt flesh?

And as the years wore on, Nathan's mother slowly gave up hope of his father returning. After the third year after the attack, she gave Nathan all of his father's old tools, weapons, armor, and other assorted items. Nathan accepted the items without hesitation; he never gave up hope on his father returning, and he just viewed it as his mother giving him the items for safe-keeping. With his father gone, and with the general decline in population, the educational school was terminated and a military academy was put into place. As with the others, young Nathan was enrolled into the academy. While he hated the aspect of war and fighting and still preferred learning about the past, he was a natural at the academy. His father's basic training and his own dabbles in combat training with his father had only strengthened his body, and he could easily handle any challenge that rolled in his way.

As year 17 rolled by, the Zone had begun to show rapid signs of deterioration. On the winter of year 13, rations were halved once more, and many families could not survive with just the meager portions. They began to look for other ways to profit, and began working for smuggling groups and other organized groups like the Fireflies. While the Fireflies were a big hit in other Zones, the New York Zone had enough rations for the past years that the people were decently content; they had no need to advocate for radical change or seek supplies for other means. But that all changed in this winter. A family of smugglers were convoying into the Zone with one of heir secret passages when they were attacked by the infected. Given they were smugglers, they had some combat finesse, but ultimately numbers won and they all became infected. Soon enough, other unwary travelers decided to take the path to reach the outside. But with such shelter in the tunnel, the infected were shielded from the harsh weather, and they had slowly eaten up the smuggler population. With such a myriad of infected, they eventually reached a critical mass, and spilled out into the streets. The guards, posted on the walls, were caught unprepared for an attack originating in the city center. Half the Zone was lost that winter, in both population and land. New boundaries were drawn, and security was as tight as ever. Even though with the increase of rations in the spring of year 14, the damage was done. The Zone was collapsing. Nathan, who was given a post on the guard that night, as required by the academy, watched in horror as the infected tore their way through his community, his neighbors, his friends and his mother. Caught in the hospital on the day of the attack, Nathan's mother never reported back into the newly established safe zone, like so many others. The military had tested the populace of the disease and then terminated the bitten. Nathan, with the loss of his last pillar of support and hope, had almost all but given up. While he accepted the worst, there was still a little part of him that believed that his parents were still among the living and would appear one day, but his understanding of the current situation culled such fantasies and only transformed them into nightmares.

Jaded by such experiences, Nathan had drove harder into honing his skills at the academy, lining up shots and running through drills. Being a quiet one, his style was one of accuracy and precision. Taunts rarely had an effect on him. In spars he would methodically watch and test his opponents, find a weak spot or a mistake in action, and then punish his opponent for it. For him, speed was key. Since he was always on the skinner side, he would not be able to endure as much as his opponent or hit as hard. But by out-reaching most and evading, he was able to win most bouts. With other important skills outside of direct combat, Nathan excelled at stealth. Being a light-footed and thin, teenager, he would easily sneak around others and position himself to have a better shot than his competitors. And with stealth, comes perception and a sixth sense of were his enemies were. On raids, he would sometimes just know that he was in the wrong place or just feel that he was fine behind the target, even through the target was turning around. With these skills, Nathan was well prepared for world, but deep inside, he had hoped he would never have to be left to fend for himself in the outside, or never having to play exterminator or executioner with others.

On the 20th year, the Zone finally fell. Rations became almost non-existent, as the Zone's supply had ran out. A large portion of the settlers decided to move to the Boston Zone, and three-quarters of the population had left. Nathan stuck with the remaining few, and dutifully defended the zone. He was promoted by his little group to the head sniper and tracker, and he was given the best rifle the Zone could offer, an old scope, and a bunch of bandoleers and magazines. He had always kept his father's old pistol with him, the sturdy M1911 and donned an all black body armor for his outfit. He was also given a military issue gas mask for dealing with infected and winter clothes for the seasons. On one day, he was given a solo hunting task, to hunt in the outside, and he left with a full supply of gear expecting the worst and hoping for the best. But in these times, one could only surmise at the bleary future...

It was a good kill. Following the old moniker of conservation and skill, Nathan managed to shoot once and kill once. And given the preparation he had throughout the years, such feats were rarely happenstance. Now with a stag in tow, he wandered back to his camp, through the woods and stopped. The front gates were ajar and the guards were strangely missing for a settlement that prided itself on a strong guard. An eerie silence permeated the settlement, and any given soul would have known that something was not right, and something must have happened. Dropping the stag, Nathan resisted the urge to sprint in and slowly entered the gates. The usual greeters walking the streets were gone. Some doors to residences were cracked ajar, while others seemed to be bolted in shut. There were no signs of struggle anywhere. Footprints were strangely absent on the well worn paths, and the night lights were still on, despite the current time of noon. Nathan carefully stalked around the settlement for a while longer, see neither infected nor hunters, and had entered the barracks, in which he had lived for the last couple of years. As he walked through the hallways of the barracks, he noted that clothes, weapons, and ammo where still in their locations, barely untouched since he had left. And on his door, which was unlocked and open, was a small symbol of some kind of insect. While it seemed to have a general shape of a firefly, with the two sets of wings and a simple cross body, its bottom torso had an extra cross, symbolizing an extra set of legs, and the head contained an extra antenna. Maybe someone had drunkenly painted the symbol or it was purposely done so. And in total polarization to the goal fireflies, the symbol seemed wicked and mutated. An idea that the sickness has spread and even corrupted the one group that had sworn to end it. Or maybe it was just a mis-painting, just an accident.

But Nathan had no time to ponder such things and gathered his things and left, but the symbol had burned into his memory, as his only clue to the missing past that he no longer had. And with that Nathan wandered into the wilderness...

While Nathan's story was one to be told through the ages, his story is not all that we are going to hear. In the same year, year twenty after the outbreak, an aged man and a young teenager began a trek for humanity. One of them had the cure; the other, the means of getting it.

...

May, Year 20

"Ellie, come on, we need to get up there"

Joel beckons Ellie to run over and to quickly scale up the wall with Joel's help. They were on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, and were currently trying to escape the pact of hunters that had ambushed them earlier. As Ellie scales Joel and then the wall, sounds of yelling and gunfire draw near.

"Shit Joel, raise me a little higher, shit, shit, shit..."

As Ellie grapples with the edge of the wall, the wall began to creak against the extra weight trying to pull it down. And after much effort, Ellie finally scales the wall and reaches the other side. Extending her arms, she calls out for Joel to come follow her up the wall, but as Joel scales the wall and grasps Ellie's hand, the wall begins to creak, and begins to tilt. Joel continues his climb, and he manages to get his chest over the edge, but as he moves his torso across, the wall begins to collapse. Joel falls, inadvertently pulling Ellie with him into the small puddle below as the rubble fall and cover them both. As Joel shifts the part of the wall covering him over to a side and looks around for Ellie.

"Ell-"

Suddenly thrust into the water, Joel's head bounces off the ground and his revolver slides away from his hands. He tries to push off the floor and get his head out of the water, but the other person was just too strong, and was in much better position. Joel struggles to get out of the water and throws the arm pinning him down off and emerges, only to be pushed back into the puddle. He tries to do the same procedure again, and gives it the old college try, but his attacker was prepared this time and Joel fails to gain progress. His arms snakes towards the revolver, but it is kicked away by his attacker. He still struggles, and tries to reach for the gun, but slowly his vision is darkening, his strength is failing, and his will is faltering.

_Ellie... Sarah... I'm Sorry._

Ellie finally regains her bearings on the situation, sit ups and looks around. Seeing Joel struggling - and losing - she begins to panic.

"Oh man, oh man, oh man,.." seems to be her comfort phrase, as she glances around and sees the revolver. She picks the gun out of the water, takes aim through the beaten-up iron sights and begins to pull the trigger.

A slightly muffled crack echoes through the landing. Joel lunges head-first out of the water and takes a much needed breath. Ellie's finger is still on the trigger. The attacker is on the ground. A pool of blood flows from his head.

Joel recovers and looks at Ellie half apologetically, half angrily for her actions. But as he realizes that the gun was still cold, a voice whispers,

"Over here. Quick."

Ellie and Joel glance at the direction of the voice and sees an person dressed in black and holding a rifle waving them over. Still hearing the yells of the hunter looking for them, they have no choice but to follow the mysterious figure...

The man leads them out of the city through the sewer system, and they manage to evade the rest of the hunter faction. After bringing them to a clearing he stops and turns around. He looks at the two in the eyes, his own brown piercing Ellie's emerald and Joel's brown. After a few seconds of deliberation, he states,

"We should be safe here."

Joel and Ellie look at each other, speaking unspoken language and look back at him.

"Why did you lead us here? And why did you help us?"

"Not much good is left in this world of ours, and seeing a pair as strange as you two braving the outside is a pretty remarkable. After all the world has done me, and graced me the gift of surviving this long, I could at least aid a few good people to live a bit longer, right?"

His eyes seemingly twinkle at the statement. His cold, observant eyes slowly change into a caring brown, and he smilies, or at least seems to have (You cannot really tell with that mask of his) at the two.

Ellie and Joel ease their guard a bit, but Joel still continues the banter, probing him to see is he had other motivations or other plots against the two.

After lengthy conversation between the two men, constantly interjected with Ellie bugging him for his name, but to no avail, Joel had begun to trust the man, albeit just a little bit. While the lack of a name seemed unsettling to Joel, but the man claimed it was in his past, and was not applicable any more in the current state of affairs. Joel and Ellie decided to stay with him for a night. That night turned into two, two turned into three, and three into a week. As Joel and Ellie finally prepared to leave, he just tagged along with the two, stating that he had nothing else to do. By the end of the week, Joel and Ellie had trusted him enough to allow him to do so and the three became friends, and eventually partners as they traversed the lands towards the west.

...

December, Year 20

He, Joel, and Ellie endured. They endured through the lives and deaths of Henry and Sam. They endured trekking to Joel's brother Tommy's settlement and they began to endure their journey to the University of Eastern Colorado, the next stop on their journey...

The once green leaves had turned an aged yellow as they littered the path ahead of them. A pair of horses tread on the remains of the concrete highway as the trio rode on to towards the university. A large glass building shaped in a convex mirror greeted them in the distance.

"Callus. That's what I'll name it."

"Name what?"

"The horse of course."

"What kind of name is Callus?"

"It's a beautiful name and, you're still beautiful, right Callus?"

The horse neighs under Ellie's touch.

"See Joel, I told you he'd like it"

Joel stares ahead, impassively and he just laughs.

"Callus sure beats the other names, like Jake, John, Jim, Steve, Nathan, ..." he claims and then trails off.

"You bet. I was reading this book about this family in someplace called England or something, and they had to deal with those stupid issues like what to wear, what to brings, and stuff like that. Though I remember them having a family dog named Callus and they would always go to talk the pet when their stupid 'everyday' issues where too much for them. And they would..."

As they edged nearer and nearer the university, Ellie kept describing the book like there was no tomorrow, but who could blame her? It's not like they knew if they even had a tomorrow to be in. Eventually Ellie finished her heated review of the book and they continued in silence. Leaves crunched under the horse's hooves they exited off the crumbling highway to a worn-down local street. The silence between the group persists, and lasts much too long. Walking through nature's reclaimed path, they barely hear any of nature's ever-present sounds, which Joel soon picks ups. Joel looks over and glances at him, and they both nod at one another, understanding the situation and getting on guard for whatever might happen next. Ellie still remains oblivious to the situation, being too busy petting Callus and grooming his mane.

Joel grasps Ellie shoulder and gives her the unspoken signal, putting her also on guard. They begin to slow down their pace, the clacking of hooves on the rocky ground became less and less. Drawing out their weapons, a rifle each for he and Joel, and a bow for Ellie, they begin heavily scrutinizing the surrounding scenery, and strained their ears to try to hear any unnatural noises.

Click.

Startled, Joel looks left and right searching for the sound of the noise. Ellie jumps in her seat and draws her bow. He brings the sought to his eyes, and ...

"My bad guys, I had to cock my rifle."

Ellie looks at him, and says "Fuck man, you scared me."

He laughed, "Well, having a useless first shot isn't going to help."

"But, oh man, you scared us good..."

"Quiet down you two," Joel warns them as he lowers his gun, the crisis seemingly adverted.

They continued on their path, the large convex mirror reflecting the sun light and into their eyes. The horses' hooves crunched on the yellow leaves of the unworn path.

"How much longer do you think will take us to get there, Joel?"

"Hopefully we'll get there by sundown with these horses, if we don't encounter anything on the way of course."

"Yeah, I second that, Ellie, the horses don't seem too tired and we seem to me making good time."

"Maybe the Fireflies will gives us with some nice food, a soft bed, and a nice safe zone with tons of books to read"

"Keep dreaming baby girl," Joel mutters.

They continue on in the silence. Joel visibly relaxes and tries to catch up on lost sleep. Ellie looks around and seemingly absorbs the environment around her in an innocent curiosity. He counts his bullets and his arrows, and then twirls the knife. The horses march onward towards the university.

All seems fine for a while, but in such days such wasn't the norm.

...

December, Year 20: The Next Day

_Ugh... Fuck. I need to stop falling down these fucking ledges. _

Joel lies on the ground, with a rusted pole sticking through his torso, barely missing hitting his spine or rupturing his stomach.

_Fuck..._

"Joel?, Joel! Oh man, what had happened to you?"

"Ellie, help me up... Please."

"What do you want me to do, Joel?"

Shots echo in from the distance. He must be engaging with the hunters.

"Ellie, just pull."

"Got it. Ready? One, Two, Three..."

Joel manages to pull himself off of the pole, his blood seeping through his shirt and pooling on the floor.

"Oh Man, Oh Man, Oh Man," Ellie mutters.

A door breaks open behind Ellie.

"Ellie! Move!"

Ellie hits the floor and Joel pull out his pistol and takes three aimed shots, killing the three intruders. Joel picks himself up and stumbles towards the door, barely avoiding tripping over the corpses. Ellie runs to Joel and helps him move to the door. Shots continued to ring in the background.

With much effort, Joel gets up, and they continued on to move out of the courtyard and leave the university. Joel stumbles after Ellie and falls after going moving through the window. But just as Ellie is helping him up, A hunter bursts through the front door. He yells,

"I know you're here, get out already; it's hopeless."

Shots continue to echo in the background. Joel bleeds out behind a lab bench as the hunter shoots his cover with his shotgun. Ellie stealthy sneaks to the side and aims her pistol at the hunter. Joel's cover continues to disappear as shotgun rounds tear off the top of the bench. Ellie shoots the hunter but misses, and he swings his shotgun around and fires two rounds in her direction. Joel pops out of his cover and sends two rounds down his way, hitting and killing the hunter. Ellie runs back to Joel and they again slowly make their way towards their horse.

As they enter the next room, the same problems appears again. Two hunter burst out the door upstairs and make their way towards Joel and Ellie. Joel begins to blackout and collapses on the floor, and Ellie takes down a hunter with the rest of her clip. She takes a swing from a golf club from the other hunter as she reloads, and then eliminates the other. She runs back to Joel and helps him back up, and they head out of the building and to Callus.

But by the time they reach Callus, another Hunter was trying to take Callus for himself. Joel stumbles forward once more and his blood stains the fresh snow on the blacktop. Ellie manages to down the hunter before he is able to take out his weapon. Callus neighs. The crack of the rifle echoes off of the buildings.

Eventually, Ellie manages push Joel on the horse and she looks around for him. They haven't seen him for the longest time, as they separated a while back right after they entered the building. He claimed he had something to do and left. Maybe he was the source of the shots that echoed around the building...

"Hey Ellie! Over here!"

A shout and a wave greet Ellie on the rooftops. He stands there, shouldering his hunting rifle, with used shells littered all over the railing of the rooftop.

"Wait up for me, will you?"

Another shout pierces the silence. And he makes his way towards the nearby fire escape and dashes down the stairs. The noisy sounds echo off the buildings. Joel slackens and hunches over. Ellie tries to support him and stabilize his condition. All seems to be going well as he hits the ground level and makes his way to the other horse. He mount his horse, and gallops over. He takes note of Joel, mouths his shock and quickly searches his pack to find the necessary medical supplies. He fishes out bandages, alcohol, and a almost empty bottle of penicillin and passes them to Ellie. They start moving, albeit slowly due to Joel's injury.

But as they head out of the university, and the troubles that lay with it, they hear something.

Click.

He and Ellie look around. Joel completely slumps over on the horse. One Clicker appeared at the edge of the forest. It twitched, looked around and then locked on the two horses.

Click. Click. Click-Click-Click-Click-Click.

He looks Ellie in the eye and tugs something on his neck. More Clickers seem to multiply at the edge of the forest. One turns into two, two lead to four, four attracted eight, and so on. They were swarmed, and Joel was injured. He continued tugging on his neck. Ellie seemed bewildered, torn between looking at Joel, or risking cocking her gun to attack the clickers. After a little bit of more effort, he seemingly pulled a necklace off his neck. He looked at Ellie once, more, caught her attention and threw the necklace at her.

"Keep this safe for me will you?"

And with that he then threw his medical bag towards her and galloped in the other direction. He threw a nail-bomb to the right and one to his left, and shot a couple of times into the air with his handgun. And with once last glance towards Ellie, showing a guilty and remorseful smile, he quickly left the two and headed back to the university. The Clickers, attracted by the sounds he was making, zealously followed him and ran past Ellie, Joel and Callus. Ellie sat quietly without a sound. Joel was passed out on his mount, blood still dripping onto the fresh snow below.

With the Clicker swarm now past them, Ellie looked down at the necklace in her hands. Turning the worn necklace around she found a dog tag.

_Nathan Renkov._

_ Blood Type A._

_ Born Three Years after the Outbreak_

_ Quarantine Zone: New York._

Ellie looks back up, sheds two tears, and rides on to whatever awaits her and Joel in the cold winter.

...

March, Year 21.

They survived David. They survived the Fireflies. And now they were almost at Tommy's settlement. Everything seemed to fall in place, as Joel managed to save Ellie from the grasp of the fireflies and the two were united once more. Yet, as the settlement appeared on the horizon, Ellie stopped. She looked at Joel sorrowfully.

"Hey wait. Back in Boston, Back when I was bitten, I wasn't alone. My best friend was there. And she got bit too. We didn't know what to do. So she says, 'Let's just wait it out. Y'know, we can be all poetic and lose our minds together". I'm still waiting for my turn.

"Ellie..."

"Her name was Riley and she was the first to die. And then it was Tess. And then Sam. And Nathan. Nathan was the last to die..."

"But none of it is on you."

"No, no. You don't understand..."

"Look. I struggled for a long time with survivin'. And you ..., no matter what, you keep finding something to fight for. Now I know thats what you don't want to here right now. But its ..."

"Swear to me. Swear to me everything you said about the Fireflies is true."

Joel slightly fidgets and looks into her eyes.

"I swear"

Anger, but then understanding and remorsefulness, play across Ellie's face as she nods.

"Okay."

And together they looked a the settlement once more and proceeded down the hill towards home.


End file.
